One of the most popular
UK TV series, Heartbeat is now in its eleventh series and set to continue
for many more. With its winning combination of beautiful scenery, background
music of 60's pop classics and gentle anecdotes about a bobby on the beat
in the Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, millions of viewers settle back
on a Sunday evening to see a vanished way of life. Many of them don't
realist that these stories are all based on the actual police career and
bestselling Constable series by onetime bobby Nicholas Rhea and this is
his twenty-sixth compilation of tales, many of which are linked by the
common theme of markets.

It is worth saying at this point that this is not going to appeal if you
like your crime fiction with lots of hard-hitting social comment, gore
and fast action. If you haven't stopped reading at this point and fancy
a departure from the norm (which is always refreshing) this might well
fit the bill.

So read all about encounters with peeping toms at a hostel for nurses,
what happens when the Thumbstick Club's unique walking sticks get stolen,
a live hand grenade and a runaway rabbit in amongst the greengrocery at
market, and what village character Claude Jeremiah Greengrass is up to
with his smelly dog Alfred. Find out what Twelve-Pint Pete gets challenged
to do, why the Laughing Cavalier has taken up jogging and what is so special
about Pedro the Paperweight. My own favourite part was a unique (and totally
free) was of making your own set of indestructible kitchen weights.

As ever, reading this is like sinking into a warm bath or putting on your
favourite slippers (presumably not both together) and there is an oddly
hypnotic quality about it all that makes one yearn for something lost,
even if you are not old enough to remember it. Although this book is sold
as nonfiction I found myself wondering which stories were true and which
half-true or made up - surely all these humorous and strange anecdotes
didn't happen to one person? Many people reading this will never have
seen or heard of the series; although take my word for it that it is a
real British institution.